GREAT WHITE MYSTERY 91
famously mentioned in Jaws may have been
perpetrated by a bull shark, not a great white.
We don’t know for sure how long they live,
how many months they gestate, when they reach
maturity. No one has seen great whites mate or
give birth. We don’t really know how many there
are or where, exactly, they spend most of their
lives. Imagine that a land animal the size of a
pickup truck hunted along the coasts of Cali-
fornia, South Africa, and Australia. Scientists
would know every detail of its mating habits,
migrations, and behavior after observing it in
zoos, research facilities, perhaps even circuses.
But the rules are different underwater. Great
whites appear and disappear at will, making it
nearly impossible to follow them in deep water.
They refuse to live behind glass—in captivity
some have starved themselves or slammed their
heads against walls. (Several aquariums have
released them for their own safety or because
they were attacking tank-mates.)
Yet scientists today, using state-of-the-art
technologies, may be on the verge of answering
two of the most vexing mysteries: How many are
there, and where do they go? Unraveling these
mysteries could be critical to deciding how to
protect ourselves from them and them from us.
When we finally see the great white clearly from
all angles, will the world’s most fearsome killer
deserve our fear or our pity?
A large great white explodes through the water near the Neptune Islands. Scientists identify these sharks by
their dorsal fins, their scars, and the jagged line separating their white and gray halves.